History 13/03/20 Battalions: as Stalin fought with cowardice in the red Army
In the front line, especially in the first months of the Second world war, the red Army, the most common punishment for desertion, cowardice during combat and was shot down the line. Over time, this harsh method of exposure to military discipline there is an alternative – the penal battalions. In these units, according to historians, during the great Patriotic war visited up to half a million soldiers.
Alarmist – to the wall
At the beginning of the war, when not only ordinary, but also the Supreme command of the red Army was difficult to navigate in the environment, in terms of total retreat of the military units of the border frontiers of the USSR cases of mass panic and desertion seriously disorganized and without that leaves much to be desired Soviet order of combat units. Officers raise the discipline is both simple and hard way – shot deserters “according to the law of war”.
after a few months this measure was to give negative results – in the reports from the front lines reported to the Supreme command, increasingly began to appear about the actual commanders of their authority and their perverted interpretation of the terms “cowardice” and “desertion”. In October 1941 the people’s Commissar of defense of the USSR issued a decree which referred to cases of substitution in the military units of the red Army educational work of repression. It said that the facts of mob violence, arbitrariness on the part of commanders, in contrast, reduced military discipline and demonstrate the incompetence of officers. In the document the emphasis in the educational work with the personnel was placed on persuasion rather than coercion. The decree was duplicated at the front, and has published its decisions on intolerance towards officers ‘ tyranny.
the Germans created battalions before us
the Situation at the front, meanwhile, changed, and by the summer of 1942, when the Nazis rushed into the country, and the morale of the red Army units falling rapidly, it took the introduction of fundamentally new punishment for a manifestation of the low morale among whom cowardice was almost essential. The creation of penal battalions, in the opinion of the high command of the red Army, was to significantly improve the military discipline in the existing connections.
Actually, the idea of forming battalions in the Russian army does not belong to the Supreme military command of the Soviet red Army – this part was even in the First world. However, by the time of their formation, the Russian army was so demoralized that the fighting battalions to participate did not. In the civil war in red army there were also the penal battalions composed of deserters.
In late July, 1942, was issued the famous order No. 227, more commonly known as the “not one step back!” Three days before its signing in the 42nd army of the Leningrad front was created as a separate stromata – the first unit of this kind during the great Patriotic war. The order “not one step back!” was obliged to create a similar form already officially.
In the battalions, in particular, went the soldiers, who showed in a combat situation, the cowardice, the cowardice that has become deserters. For the entire period of the great Patriotic war, the red Army was formed more than 60 battalions and more than a thousand penal companies.
it is Noteworthy that the Soviet battalions were created following the example of divisions of the Wehrmacht “999” and “500”, formed by the enemy much earlier. And the Germans strabatute the status of detainees “pull strap” to the end, if remained alive, with no hope for rehabilitation, whereas in the Soviet penal battalions condemned by a military Tribunal could atone for the blood, and after being wounded to return to his native part. In Hitler’s battalions “merge” of all evil. In particular, these renegades were the basis of the infamous Stormothe howling of the SS brigade “Dirlewanger”, celebrated in the history of the great Patriotic his monstrous cruelty.
Russian Seven
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